Golden Boy having problems getting Luis Ortiz an opponent for 3/5 fight

By Boxing News - 01/26/2016 - Comments

1-OrtizVidondo_Hoganphotos2By Allan Fox: Golden Boy Promotions is having problems finding an opponent to face interim WBA heavyweight champion Luis Ortiz (24-0, 21 KOs) for his March 5 fight on HBO. According to Dan Rafael, the following heavyweights have turned down an offer from Golden Boy to fight Ortiz: Andrey Fedosov, Andy Ruiz and Carlos Takam.

The 6’4” Ortiz might have scared away the potential candidates for a fight against him with his recent 7th round knockout win over Bryant Jennings. Ortiz fought with a flu and still was able to dominate Jennings and show skills that many of the heavyweights in the division can only dream about.

Per Golden Boy Boxing, several heavyweights have turned down facing Luis Ortiz on March 5 in Washington, DC, some without even hearing the money!” Dan Rafael said on his Twitter. “Among opponents (their teams really) I’m told turned down 3/5 HBO main event vs Luis Ortiz: Carlos Takam, Andy Ruiz, Andrey Fedosov. #boxing.”

There aren’t too many fighters that want to risk their standings in a fight against the 36-year-old Ortiz, and you can’t really blame them. Ortiz isn’t a full heavyweight champion, so the money that the fighters are going to be getting to face him probably isn’t going to be all that much. If this was a real title fight against the likes of WBC champion Deontay Wilder, WBA champ Ruslan Chagaev, IBO/WBA/WBO champion Tyson Fury or IBF champion Charles Martin, then it would be well worth it for challengers to accept a fight against one of them. But with Ortiz, it’s just not worth it. A loss is too much of a career drag and it takes too much time to come back from it.

Golden Boy has the resources to get a really good opponent for Ortiz, but they’ll likely need to pay more than what HBO is willing to offer for an opponent for Ortiz. It’s doubtful that Golden Boy will do that though. This means that Ortiz is likely going to have to take a step backwards with his next opponent by facing another weak fighter that has no chance of beating him.

Ortiz could wind up being avoided for a long time to come unless he picks up more fans. Even if Ortiz eventually wins the WBA “regular” heavyweight title, he could wind up in the same position as the current champion Ruslan Chagaev is in. Chagaev defends his titles against guys like Lucas Browne and Francesco Pianeta. Chagaev isn’t going to win over a lot of fans making defenses like that, and he’ll likely continue to defend against those type of fighters until he eventually loses his belt. Ortiz could take over and be in the same position in defending his WBA title against obscure fighters until he eventually ages out and gets beaten and send into the contender ranks.

Ortiz has the talent to be a very good champion, but he’s got age working against him. Ortiz needs one of the well-known fighters in the division to fight him. If he could get a fight against someone like Anthony Joshua, it would be a huge opportunity for Ortiz to showcase his skills. However, Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn would likely never let Joshua fight an experienced fighter like Ortiz.



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